ASIA'S DEADLY WAVES: U.S. TROOPS; In Areas All but Unreachable, Helicopter Crews Bring Help

By WAYNE ARNOLD; James Brooke contributed reporting from Utapao, Thailand, for this article.

Published: January 5, 2005

Petty Officer First Class Michael Ausley is a seasoned helicopter crewman, with service in Somalia and the Persian Gulf war. But even that experience did little to prepare him for his new mission this week, helping evacuate villagers from the devastated southern coast of Sumatra.

''Flying over this and seeing what I've seen, there's no way I could put a name to that,'' he said. ''Just shock.''

Anchored 15 miles off the western tip of Sumatra, Indonesia, this aircraft carrier is a crucial forward outpost in the United States military's aid effort in the tsunami-devastated Indian Ocean region. Since arriving here on New Year's Day, the carrier's 17 Seahawk helicopters have been running as many six or seven flights a day, delivering food and water and evacuating the injured.

Their work is far from finished. Despite carrying an estimated 68,000 pounds of supplies daily, pilots estimate that they are managing to supply the survivors along the coast in Aceh Province with enough to get by for only a day. And although the Indonesian Army has put some order to what was at first a panicked grab among villagers for aid, the onset of the rainy season has hampered efforts to deliver supplies. From their position off Banda Aceh, the province's capital, the Abraham Lincoln's helicopters can fly only as far as the leveled city of Meulaboh, along Aceh's west coast. The fate of villages to the south remains unknown. But help may come within the next day or so, from a Marine amphibious ship that is due to arrive with more helicopters.

For the carrier's helicopter pilots and crewmen, who are usually deployed to hunt submarines, the aid effort here has suddenly thrust them into a spotlight normally occupied by the ship's fighter crews. But fighter pilots and sailors have also rushed to volunteer for relief duties on shore. The Lincoln and its escort ships are part of the largest military mission in southern Asia since the Vietnam War, involving more than 20 ships and dozens of aircraft so far.

The effort is being coordinated out of Royal Thai Naval Airfield in Utapao, Thailand. In the past week, members of an interservice task force have raced to turn several empty buildings on the base into a command headquarters, laying high-speed data cables and setting up computers.

''We are doing something unusual here: planning, executing and deploying concurrently,'' said Lt. Gen. Robert R. Blackman, the Marine officer in charge of the mission. He likened it to ''planning your family vacation while you are packing the car.''

The mission has been able to get up and running so quickly partly because of longstanding military ties with Thailand. During the Vietnam War, Utapao rumbled and roared with takeoffs of huge B-52 bombers heading east on bombing runs.

The ships and aircraft involved in the mission were quickly diverted to the region after the earthquake and tsunami on Dec. 26. The Abraham Lincoln, for example, was in Hong Kong as part of a four-month training tour around the Pacific when it received orders to speed to Sumatra.

Signs of the devastation ahead came early. As the Lincoln steamed through the Malacca Strait and around the Sumatran coast, bodies could be seen floating as far as 20 miles out to sea, crew members say.

Even before the carrier anchored, its Seahawk helicopters were taking off on their first missions, heading to the airport at Banda Aceh, where cargo planes from Australia, New Zealand and Singapore had been delivering supplies, said Capt. David A. Lausman, the ship's executive officer. With the roads to the south washed out, the choppers were the only way to deliver relief there.

What the crews found was utter devastation, villages reduced to matchsticks, and fields inundated a mile or more inland. Villagers stood on mudflats, dazed, dehydrated and many with serious injuries. Desperate villagers converging on the helicopters often made it impossible to land, crew members say, and during some flights crewmen had to throw supplies to the ground while hovering. Since then, Captain Lausman said, the Navy has found interpreters to help warn villagers away from the whirling rotors.

The Indonesian military is also playing a central role in coordinating the American relief effort. Seahawks carried Indonesian military personnel with them on their early flights, leaving them in villages to organize the survivors.

In just four days of operations, a semblance of routine has emerged. At sunrise, the Seahawks take off for Banda Aceh, returning to the carrier only to refuel. Unless they are swapping crews, they refuel with the engines running. After unloading supplies, the helicopters pick up stragglers and the gravely wounded and fly them to Banda Aceh.

''It hasn't really hit yet,'' said Lt. Scott Cohick, one of the Seahawk pilots. ''You see these places that used to be villages. And now there's only a mosque and lines that used to be streets.''

Photo: Members of an American interservice task force moving power equipment at its command post at the Royal Thai Naval Airfield in Utapao. (Photo by Jean Chung for The New York Times)

Chart: ''U.S. Military's Contributions''
American military forces contributing to the Asian tsunami relief efforts have delivered 460,000 pounds of supplies so far.

NUMBER OF TROOPS
11,601 On ships
1,001 In Thailand
167 In Sri Lanka
127 In Indonesia
107 In Malaysia